


i'm okay (i say to myself over and over again)

by subgyeom



Series: yugyeom-centric collection [4]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kim Yugyeom-centric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 19:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12659454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subgyeom/pseuds/subgyeom
Summary: yugyeom is thirteen when he is scouted.(in which yugyeom was the maknae of another group long before he was a member of got7.)





	i'm okay (i say to myself over and over again)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm gonna say rn that this fic isn't good. but i had this idea and i couldn't be bothered to write a 10,000+ word fic about it (which is what i should of done, bc there is so many ideas in my head for this au). also the ocs in it are like, not developed. at all. you'll probably not care for them. my point is that this is really bad, okay
> 
> also the fic is not at all about romance. it's more just yugyeom's journey in this universe. i'm not sure if that's clear or not. there is yugyeom-centric ot7, but it's not important and more of just a background detail
> 
> (title from all alone by day6)

yugyeom is thirteen when he is scouted.

they spot him at once of his dance competitions. he’d only been able to snatch second place, but that was a given. he was surrounded by elders, those with far more experience than he’d ever managed to gain. he’d probably only managed to push himself so far because of the charm his mother said she could see sparkling in his eyes, taking over his movements.

he’s still a kid.

that’s probably why he’s ensnared so quickly.

-

yugyeom doesn’t understand much of the logical thinking of it.

they ask him if he wants to be an idol. he thinks of all the hours he’s spent lost in music, singing until his lungs ache in his chest from the lack of air, dancing until his still developing limbs _burn_. he thinks of how little else matters more than the freedom he finds in the beat. he thinks. he says yes.

he won’t realise until years later that he’s made a mistake. _look at the fine print_ , he would tell himself. _what happens to people like us?_

but he’s still just a kid.

-

the company is small.

he shares a room with every other trainee there. there’s only six of them. that should be a warning sign. yugyeom just thinks of the fact that he’s happy the practice room will be open for longer.

most of them don’t talk.

myung, the oldest, focuses too much on unimportant things, enough so that his eyes are constantly fluttering from a lack of sleep and the curve of his ribs can be seen peeking through his skin. yugyeom tells him as nicely as he can to look after himself. myung tells him that’s he a kid who doesn’t understand anything and that he needs to fuck off. yugyeom avoids him after that.

yeong-ho finds himself in his own head too often. yugyeom’s mother would probably call him a daydreamer. yugyeom makes sure to shake him out of it so he doesn’t miss any of his vocal lessons. the last time that happened, yeong-ho had stumbled back into the dorm with bruises littering the flesh beneath his shirt. yugyeom doesn’t want to witness that anymore than he doesn’t want it to happen to himself.

yazhu’s from china. his korean is still a little poor and he doesn’t speak that often anyway. he seems detached from the world, up in the stars instead of down on earth. sometimes, he looks through yugyeom as if he’s not even there. yugyeom wonders what made him this way, made him so able to withstand any criticism thrown his way, made him so stoic. yugyeom sometimes thinks he maybe doesn’t want to know.

xander’s from america, but chatters on more than any of them. his face is so lit up with emotion when they meet that it shocks yugyeom a little. he bounces where he stands and fiddles his whatever he can get his hands on and is far more touchy than yugyeom is used to. eventually, somewhere along the way, the light in his eyes starts to die, the flame of his passion starting to dim. yugyeom wants to find a way to strike another fire in him. (spoiler alert: he doesn’t get the chance.)

and then there’s jeongguk.

in jeongguk, yugyeom finds a confidant. they are the two youngest, slipping under the same covers at night to share secrets and whisper of the day’s events. it’s jeongguk yugyeom goes to when he gets a little too homesick, missing his mother more than he’d like to admit. it’s jeongguk yugyeom goes to when the training gets a little too hard and yugyeom feels like maybe, just maybe, it’s not worth it anymore. it’s jeongguk yugyeom goes to when the pushes and pulls get even more rough and yugyeom finds himself with discoloured marks all of his body. it’s jeongguk yugyeom goes to, sobbing and broken, when one of the dance instructors shoves a hand down his pants and makes him suck him off in a back room.

maybe there is a reason why most of them don’t talk.

-

they are set to debut the year yugyeom turns fourteen.

myung is set to become their leader. the want to say what he’s pushed down, that myung’s too immature, too hidden behind a facade of hardness, to even be ready for this, is overwhelming.

in truth, psychologically, none of them are ready for this.

yeong-ho strains his vocals every time he sings from the technique he’s forced to use, but he still manages to sound beautiful. they appoint him as the main singer and the visual. yugyeom isn’t surprised.

yahzu and xander are given the spots of lead vocals without second thought. he’s heard both of them, paid more attention to them than either will ever realise, and he knows that yahzu’s got just the right unique tone of voice to be the best rapper out of all of them. he knows that xander’s perfect for being their leader, kind but firm when necessary. but they’ll never listen to him.

jeongguk’s perfect. he can see the conflict in their eyes from trying to decide exactly where to fit him. so they don’t. he’s a rapper, a singer, a dancer, all in one- a triple threat. yugyeom’s jealous of him more than he’d like to admit.

yugyeom is seemingly the hardest to decide out of the bunch.

they criticise him for _months_. his voice is too high-pitched and the voice trainer tells him he sounds like a screeching rat when he’s singing. his dance moves, exactly what they recruited him for, are never good enough. they laugh at his features, the baby fat still on his cheeks, his uneven eyes, his gangly form.

in the end, they throw a mask over his face and force him to the back as a sub rapper.

yugyeom tries his hardest to feel as if his dreams aren’t shattered at his feet.

-

they name the group _anemone._

after the flower of fragility and bad luck.

yugyeom tries not to feel a sense of foreboding.

-

they’re only a couple of months in when jeongguk leaves.

he’s gone without a word. his bags are packed overnight and he’s disappeared by the morning. no note. no nothing. just the most distant feeling of lips brushing against his forehead and the muffled sound of a door clicking closed.

it hits him the hardest. none of the others knew jeongguk the way he did, didn’t rely on him for comfort in his times of need. but still, he’s the only one who doesn’t cry. xander bursts into tears and myung places a comforting hand on his shoulder, eyes wet. yeong-ho doesn’t dream of better times, where maybe things might have gone better for the six of them, instead just burying his face in his hands. even yazhu lets tears fall down his face, forever silent.

yugyeom thinks of the jeering faces waiting for him. the man with wandering hands. the feeling of being tainted and unpure.

he makes himself friends with the razor hidden under his bed.

and he doesn’t blame jeongguk for leaving for even a second.

-

yugyeom himself doesn’t last long either.

he’s fifteen now. he doesn’t feel it.

he feels like his chance of a happy childhood has been ripped out of his hands and torn to shreds in front of his face. he’s haunted by the cuts he hides on his thighs and the weight of everyone else’s problems and the unwanted touches he faces late at night from a man no one can stop. he feels like youth is a far off concept that he can no longer understand.

he throws himself down the stairs and breaks his leg just so he can get out of the somehow even more vigorous training regime.

then he takes the chance. he drops out of the group because of ‘health problems’.

when he leaves, he tries not to feel like he’s betraying the boys who have become part of his dysfunctional family.

he fails.

-

without him, the others blossom and wither.

 _anemone_ grows popular, even with the loss of two members just a year after debut. fans chant their names during performances and their sales skyrocket. but myung looks like he’s about to hyperventilate during every performance and yeong-ho looks like he’s finding it even harder to stay in reality and yezhu looks like he’s barely able to fake a smile for longer and xander looks like he’s about to collapse just from one step.

he leaves them the most encouraging messages he can. they don’t reply.

yugyeom isn’t sure if it’s because they hate him for leaving or because the company won’t let them.

at least jeongguk’s happier. he’s in a new group now, stares at every member as if they are his sun, dances with energy that yugyeom had never seen in him before, sings like the angel he’s always been. yugyeom’s _happy_ for him. he just wishes he could share the same happiness.

they talk on the phone sometimes. it’s nice, if a little awkward, but they are still each other’s confidants. jeongguk tells yugyeom of the worries that he’ll just disappoint his hyungs and yugyeom tells jeongguk of how he can feel phantom hands crawling over his body as he tries to sleep.

in that sense, neither of them have changed.

yugyeom finds himself in a dance crew. he's the youngest member, only sixteen, nearly seventeen. it’s small but filled with people who share his passion and it gives him a small idea of the joy he used to have in life.

no one recognises him.

yugyeom isn’t sure if that disappoints him or not.

-

the word idol eventually comes back to him.

some large company wants the crew to create a choreography for one of their biggest groups. the others are focused on squealing over the boys who will perform it. yugyeom has no idea who the fuck they even are. he lost interest in that sort of thing a long, long time ago.

the song has a melancholy feel to it, but it’s unusually upbeat rhythm gives yugyeom the inspiration he needs. his ideas are a little rough around the edges and he kicks the wall in frustration more than once but it’s done by the end of the week.

he sends the video of him performing it and forgets it ever exists.

a week later, jyp entertainment is sending him an email.

-

he ignores it. ignores it the minute he sees the word ‘auditions’. shuts off his computer and tries to pretend that it was never sent.

but they are persistent.

and yugyeom has always wanted this.

(he tries to ignore the need to scream, the shouts that crawl up his throat and try to scratch their way out, because being an idol killed him, killed the cheerful him that resided in his own safe, secure bubble - )

yugyeom has never wanted anything more.

( - and the yugyeom left behind is just bitter and cynical and hates everyone and most importantly hates _himself_ , can’t stop thinking about the touches he didn’t want, never asked for, the intimacy that is burned into his skin and still itches and made him lie in his bath tub and scrape his skin raw to try and escape it - )

and so he goes along with it.

( - can’t stop remembering his hyungs crying themselves to sleep every night, and how he’d hide his sobs in his pillow, and how he’d try to ignore the lack of warmth beside him, and how hands hit and scratched and left behind scars that still remain - )

despite his better sense of judgement.

( - and he tries to ignore all that and how this is probably the worst decision he’s ever made.)

-

in the year yugyeom is once again a trainee, much occurs.

jeongguk’s group is on the rise. they are soaring and soaring with no end in sight. yugyeom is glad for his friend. jeongguk is even happier when he finds out yugyeom has brought himself back into the world he thought he’d escaped from.

 _anemone_ falls to pieces and puts itself back together. they break from the company that left them with indescribable scars and appear anew. myung finally looks as if he’s eating enough, yeong-ho seems cheerful to not be stuck in his own head, yazhu’s smiles are real now and xander is no longer breaking from the stress.

they rename themselves _statice_. the flower of remembrance. yugyeom can’t tell if they’re remembering the struggles they went through to become happy or the two boys who fled for their own safety.

either way, he sends a text congratulating them.

and this time, they reply.

-

yugyeom turns eighteen the year jype decide to add a new member to the group got6.

it takes them seconds to decide it will be him.

-

yugyeom’s so, so awkward. but even with that fact, his first meeting with his new group mates is anything but that.

they are soft towards him. he knew they’d become aware of some factors of his past, just the fact that he was once a part of a now dead group - but he imagines it was easy to put together what really happened with that company, ever since the others fled too. and it was probably that which made them act this way, but he isn’t complaining.

the oldest, mark, is quiet but there’s something in his silent reassurance that yugyeom finds comforting. jaebum, the leader, seems to be a steady pillar for the others to rest on and yugyeom can already see that in him. jackson is _loud_ , but he makes yugyeom giggle harder than he has in years. jinyoung is the most hostile at first, but his savage act is easy for yugyeom to keep up with. youngjae is kind and sweet, and yugyeom finds his happiness infectious. bambam is mischievous and impish and he declares yugyeom his new best friend the moment he timidly shuffles into the room.

and even though every little moment as a trainee reminded him of the past, he thinks _here_ he may find a new home.

-

yugyeom’s meant to be a rapper.

that’s all he’s meant to be, ever since his unusually high voice was a point of mocking back then. he can’t sing, he knows he can’t.

so when they try to make him sing, he denies the request instantly.

until jackson brings out his puppy dog eyes.

and he tries it, sings a little of one of the got6 songs he was able to hear the others practicing, winces at the pitch of his own voice and digs his nails into his arms to hide the way hes shaking. and when he finishes, he hides himself from them, buries his face into his turtleneck sweater and whines about how he can’t believe they made him sing.

and jinyoung tilts his face up with his finger so their eyes meet and tells him his voice sounds _beautiful_.

and yugyeom scoffs, tells them right to their faces that he doesn’t believe a word of their praises, even as they keep complimenting him because he’s been told for years that he didn’t sound good, that he couldn’t pull off a note, that he should just stick to not even speaking.

but they keep going, bambam trying to make him laugh by comparing yugyeom’s voice with his screeching own, and they somehow manage to break through the self-loathing just a little with every adoring word and by the end of it, yugyeom has covered his face with his hands to hide the red flush across his cheeks.

and maybe, for once, yugyeom allows himself to believe that he is worthy of this.

(and when yugyeom is named as the group’s new main dancer, lead vocalist and maknae, the ‘sub rapper’ that follows somehow hurts less this time.)

-

the fans aren’t especially kind to him.

yugyeom doesn’t expect them to be.

but the comments that follow his announcement are harsher than he ever expected.

and if he falls into a worse state of mind - if he starts to eat less and less - if he starts to remember more vividly in his nightmares - if he starts to fall back into old habits - it isn’t his fault.

-

they pull a prank on him.

it’s harmless really, just pretending that an expensive wine bottle shattered. but the fire in jaebum’s eyes scares yugyeom more than it probably should.

it brings up thoughts yugyeom doesn’t want. thoughts that got7 could disband and the one support system yugyeom had left would crumble around him. thoughts that the year of training he’d forced himself to get through to get to this point where he had people who he cared for and who cared for him would be all for nothing in the end.

the night after it happens, jaebum finds him sobbing in his bed.

he presses his face into the sheets to muffle it, as he was so used to doing so long, but it’s as if jaebum has a sixth sense for his members’ suffering.

he pulls yugyeom into his lap and he feels like a _fucking_ child and he hates it. he hates feeling so young because it reminds him of a time where he didn’t know what was coming for him, the long path he had in front of him to happiness.

he fights against jaebum’s grasp, balling his hands into fists and hitting his chest to make him just let go, and he knows it’s the equivalent of a tantrum, but he doesn’t want this, doesn’t want false words made only to soothe his doubts.

but jaebum doesn’t let go, just holds yugyeom tighter and whispers into his ear - _it’s okay, i’m here, hyung’s here_ \- until yugyeom just breaks down more, weeping into the curve of jaebum’s neck.

and when he’s calmed down a little, trembling still, he’ll tell jaebum what he can as the other wipes the tears from his face - that he’s stuck in a cycle of self-loathing and his past won’t leave him alone and all he wants to do is _stay_ . and jaebum can probably piece together the rest, from the scars he’s seen on yugyeom’s skin to how on some days touch repulses yugyeom, but yugyeom doesn’t care because this has been building on his chest for _years_.

and when it’s over, the storm subsided, jaebum tells yugyeom they’ll all help him in whatever way they can.

internally, yugyeom laughs.

-

the thing is, jaebum wasn’t lying.

all of them take any chance they can to praise him, turning every one of his little quirks into a point of admiration and yugyeom just finds it tiring at first.

then, it just becomes a regular occurrence. a tradition.

and then he gets so used to hearing it that he starts to believe it too.

-

he’s nineteen and it’s a little easier to breathe now.

his hyungs are a helping hand for him at every moment. yugyeom is thankful for that, because he knows without them he’d probably be six feet under somewhere at this point.

he also might be a little in love with them, maybe. it’s not that important.

he still has his bad days. bad days where he wakes up screaming and scrambles away from anyone who comes near him. bad days where the thought of eating anything disgusts him. bad days where he has to get all the sharp objects in the dorm locked away from him.

but he has good days too. good days where the others can run their fingers through his hair and he’ll sink into their hands, not flinch away. good days where he’ll be more than willing to curl up on the couch and watch some old dramas and argue with jinyoung. good days where he can eat all he want without the fear of how those around him will react.

the journey to recovery is a long one, but yugyeom is getting there.

-

he’s sitting in a cafe and staring out the window. it’s peaceful, this part of the city, just surrounded by old shops. it’s nothing like the hustle and bustle of the innermost part of seoul and yugyeom’s surprisingly charmed by it.

“he’s not even listening, is he?”

“he’s never been the most attentive, myung, i don’t know why you’re just noticing.”

yugyeom sighs and shakes his head at his former groupmates.

“i would listen if you weren’t so boring, hyung.”

“i can’t believe being a member of got7 turned you into a savage, yugyeomie. _i love it._ ”

“xander, stop encouraging him.” myung peers disapprovingly at the maknae.

“hey, yazhu laughed too!”

“and yeong-ho smiled, doesn’t mean anything.” yazhu points to the boy who still has his head in the clouds, with a smirk pulling at his lips. yugyeom can’t tell if it’s from whatever he’s thinking of or because of his dysfunctional group.

“why are you all like this.” jeongguk mutters, but his tone is fond.

yugyeom smiles. he stares at his friends and smiles.

and the thoughts of what happened before doesn’t even cross his mind.


End file.
